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Transmeta To Release Next Generation CPU
CodeShark writes: "According to this story at CNN, Transmeta is set to release their new TM6000 microprocessor this afternoon. The chip apparently incorporates some of the functions usually provided by high-performance (and high price!) chip sets. Transmeta is reporting a further reduction in power requirements by 44% and sees the laptop and sub-laptop markert as the primary markets for their new CPU. Intel and AMD claim to be catching up with the Transmeta chips in terms of power requirements, I'd be curious to find out what the real world comparisons might make of those claims ..." If anyone out there is at Microprocessor Forum, please say in comments any further details that are made clear there.
They're announcing it, not releasing it. Production won't begin until the second half of 2002.
Here's the press release from transmeta.
Enjoy.
I'm curious about what information AMD and Intel have to back up their claims that they're catching up to Transmeta in power requirements.
I just got a toshiba laptop earlier this year with a 700mhz celeron. I love it but I rarely use it without being plugged into the wall, as from my experience it only lasts about 2-3 hours.
I remember seeing stuff saying a laptop with a transmeta chip can have a battery life of about 8 hours.
Assuming that is true, how could Intel and AMD possibly say they are catching up? I mean mine is a celeron, not even a pentium III or anything and it sucks up power like I would have never imagined. I hope Intel isn't talking about their powerstep technology, that is just a freaking joke.
Anyone with more information on power consumption among the different chips, I would think Transmeta would have tons of information about this since it's really their main selling point isn't it? I better go check their site.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
Ditzel said Transmeta will prove, despite Intel's claims to the contrary, that the TM5800 beats Intel's lowest power chip by a factor of 2 to 1. "And when we go to our highly integrated chip, we're going to take off another 44 percent," he said. "So we think we've got a substantial lead today, and we're going to keep that."
And yet when we look at these laptops with their lower power processors, there is VERY little added battery life, for the simple reason that the processor is not the major consumer of power in a notebook.
When you factor in that the processors are much slower than the equivalent Intel or AMD (by how much varies by who you ask and what you're doing), and there doesn't seem to be any price break, why would anyone want to use a Transmeta processor?
Transmeta needs to stop trying to sell me that they are "more l33t than Intel" and show me products that are SIGNIFICANTLY better. If they can give me, say, twice the battery life it might be worth switching to an off-brand processor that is much slower.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
As is often the case, the Register has some really interesting comments on this story here. Apparently this release has a lot of market control and damage control related to it. There is a class action suit going due to previous claims of high speed chips. Anyways, read the Register article for more details.
The great thing about vapor is that it is so malleable.
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
The problem is that the Transmeta chip will optimize programs and make them faster when compared to the unoptimized first run of a program. It is possible to speed up subsequent runs by saving recent CPU paths instead of re-translating the instructions each time, essentially 'hardwiring' the processor to do a certain set of instructions with no translation step.
Compared to an actual Intel or AMD CPU that actually has these instructions hardwired, the Transmeta chip makes a pathetic showing.
does "TM6000" mean it's going to perform equivalent to a 6000mhz P4? ;-)
Transmeta refuses to release any industry standard benchmark results for their CPUs.
Ask them. If you get something other than FUD back, please post it.
Why won't they run the SPEC int and FP tests??
They try and hide behind low power claims and can spin FUD with the best of'em. Low power means absolutely nothing unless you know how much WORK it can do.
They will give you benchmark results only if you sign an NDA and promise not to tell anyone how slow their chips are. Most companies who sign the NDA decide not to use their product. What does that say?
I'd really like to see these guys compete with Intel/Rambust, but I have no respect for companies built on FUD, regardless of who is involved.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Part of the deal with the Crusoe-chips is that they do "code-morphing" and morphs x86 instructions into something the crusoe can handle.
What if the crusoe chip could do the same to PowerPC-code?
Imagine dual-booting MacOSX with Linux x86 and Windows.
Now, that would be interesting, (and probably not something Apple would like).
One concern that goes through my mind when I look at the not very stunning performance of Crusoe is the effectiveness of VLIW (very long instruction word) processors.
Both Transmeta and Intel have bet that VLIW processors are the way forward. Intel's Itanium and Transmeta's Crusoe are both based around the VLIW concept. Transmeta hides the VLIW nature of Crusoe behind the 'Code Morphing' software that allows the chip to be IA32-compatible - Intel's IA64 architecture gives compilers raw access to the VLIW nature of the processor, and has (very slow) on-chip emulation of IA32.
Between them, they make up the only commercial VLIW processors around, and both are very poor in terms of performance compared to more conventional modern processors, whilst at the same time introducing some enormous obstacles to overcome - IA64 requires some very major changes to the way compilers work, and Crusoe requires major extra complexity in the form of the Code Morphing translation layer.
I don't wish to jump the gun, but I think this means things don't look too bright for the VLIW concept. Evolutionary enhancements to conventional RISC/CISC processors appear able to continue Moore's Law for many years yet. AMD has outright rejected VLIW for its future 64-bit strategy (x86-64) and none of the other major CPU manufacturers seem to be jumping on board either.
Have Transmeta and Intel made a very large strategic mistake? VLIW looks good on paper, but is it effective on a practical level?
It will certainly be interesting to see what happens with future Crusoe and IA64 processors.
As mentioned on MacCentral IBM just released some PowerPC G3 bundling all their recent breakthroughs and going up to 1 GHz.
"SOI and SiLK taken together with IBM's smallest 0.13-micron copper manufacturing process has resulted in a processor that typically dissipates 3.6W of power at 800MHz [...]"
What I want to see is a laptop with no hard drive, just one of those solid state RAM drives mentioned earlier (too lazy to look up link - don't need the karma). That would draw less power than a Hard drive, yes? Anyone got numbers on how much?
It's true that other parts of a portable can draw more power than the CPU: the display is a huge drain. But it's still useful to have a low-drain CPU.
I would love to have a Crusoe laptop that was as small and light as a NEC MobilePro: no moving parts, just a lot of RAM and some flash memory. Put Linux on it instead of Windows CE. Put in a Lithium ion battery. Give it a PC card slot so we can put in a 5 GB hard drive card if we want. It would rock. Sure the display would suck more power than the Crusoe, but why make the situation worse by going with some other CPU?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
about this whole Transmeta thing is the level of speculation and un-clearness.
/ 28365403.pdf. The datasheets says thermal power 10.1 Watt max. Well, we never _ever_ get that high. Also, the newer 500 Mhz ultra low power is 8 Watt max, 5 Watt under more normal conditions.
Talk all the shit you want about Intel, but I can tell you that I'm working on a board right now that uses a Mobile Celeron Mobile 400A: http://developer.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts
The thing is that TM _never_ published said figures (quickly: what's the MAX Watts a TM CPU can draw?), because supposedly all that we need to know is the power required to decode a DVD. Well, today that happens largely by the VGA controller now, doesn't it?
What suprises me even more is that Torvalds, if anyone, should know that using the simple HLT instruction in the idle thread, makes any Intel (or AMD) CPU draw a lot less power.
Even on paper I don't see the advantage of the TM CPU's. And I really hoped they would, believe me...
...will these Transmeta chips follow the same 'faster, hotter, more expensive' trend that AMD is following?
AMD's latest CPUs use less power and generate less heat. When they get to 0.13 micron with silicon-on-insulator and copper interconnects (Q1 next year), AMD chips will use 20% less power and run 20% cooler.
Personally, I preferred Zmodem.